TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011 (TOP)
MEMORIALS – BENCHMARKS FOR A NEW NATION
(DEUTERONOMY 16:1-17:20)
Like the Body of Christ in our own time, Israel was to be God's living example to the nations of God and His will. With this in mind, we can find here in chapters 16 and 17 foundational principles that have clear parallels for us today.
First, we see God called Israel to institute yearly feasts to remind them of His blessings. The Passover was one of these feasts. It reminded them of the judgment of the death angel that "passed over" and did not bring death of the first born in every Israelite home where the blood of a sacrificial lamb had marked the doorway (16:1-8). In the New Testament, Jesus is called our "Passover Lamb." Christ has become the Lamb that has taken away the just punishment of death for our sins when He died in our place upon the cross. Today we celebrate communion, the "Lord's Table," to remember that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has made it possible for the penalty of death due our sin to pass over us.
We also see the Jews were to celebrate the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. These two feasts reminded Israel of the great blessings God gave them by giving them freedom from their former Egyptian slavery. At these feasts they were to bring freewill offerings to the temple and share with the poor God's blessing and prosperity from their fields. "Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you" (16:19-20).
In like fashion, we today are called by God to treat our own financial blessings as stewards of His divine blessing. We are to give to help the poor, support ministry, and reach the lost. We also are told Israel was called by God to seek and maintain social justice (16:18-17:13). This practical social responsibility is still foundational to our witness for Christ among the nations of the world in which we dwell.
Lastly, Israel was given in this section guidelines to protect the eventual kings of Israel from the corruption and compromise such power tends to breed. They were not to have large amounts of horses for military conflicts; instead their dependency was to be on God. They were not to take multiple wives. This was a common practice of the times, where political alliances were developed through the kings of various nations having their children join in marriage. The kings of Israel were not to fall into this trap. Nor was a king to seek great wealth for himself. These three measures forced the kings of Israel to rely upon God and His Word.
We can readily see the wisdom of God in how He sought to establish Israel as a unique nation that honored God at every level of life, from religious feasts to the role of a king. God's wisdom is still the best guide for every area of life today. Follow Him and enjoy the fruit!
NKJV BIBLE TEXT
Deuteronomy 16:1-17:20
1 "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning.
5 "You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you; 6 but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall roast and eat it in the place which the LORD your God chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly to the LORD your God. You shall do no work on it.
The Feast of Weeks Reviewed
9 "You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. 11 You shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. 12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
The Feast of Tabernacles Reviewed
13 "You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. 14 And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. 15 Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice.
16 "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you.
Justice Must Be Administered
18 "You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. 19 You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. 20 You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
21 "You shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a wooden image, near the altar which you build for yourself to the LORD your God. 22 You shall not set up a sacred pillar, which the LORD your God hates.
DEUTERONOMY 17
1 "You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.
2 "If there is found among you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing His covenant, 3 who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, 4 and it is told you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing, and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones. 6 Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you.
8 "If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9 And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. 10 You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. 11 According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. 12 Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.
Principles Governing Kings
14 "When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,' 15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16 But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.' 17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.
18 "Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
| The Passover Reviewed v. 1 keep the Passover – The Feast of Passover is the oldest continually observed holiday ("holy day") in history, having been observed continually for around 3,500 years wherever Jews have lived throughout the world. It was meant to commemorate the day that the death angel "passed over" the houses that had the blood of the sacrificial lamb painted on their doorposts. It was observed in "the month of Abib," which takes places in our spring, either March or April. More detail can be found on the observance of Passover in Exodus 12, Leviticus 23:5-8 and Numbers 28:16-25. The Passover is a dramatic foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb slain so that those who will place themselves under the power of His blood would not taste eternal death. v. 2 sacrifice the Passover – "The Passover" here refers to the Passover sacrifice, the unblemished lamb, which was slain and eaten by the family. where the Lord chooses to put His name – Up until this point, the Passover was celebrated by individual families in their own homes. Here, however, God commands that when they enter the Promised Land and He chooses the place where the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) is situated, they are to bring their Passover lambs to that one communal place and sacrifice them together as a nation. | v. 3 eat no unleavened bread – The day immediately following the Feast Of Passover was the beginning of the next Feast on the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Unleavened bread is a reminder to them of the hasty departure they had made from Egypt, and that they did not have time to make bread that would rise. Leaven later came to symbolize people's deliberate sin, due to the fact that leaven causes bread to rise as it decays rapidly and gives off gasses that form air pockets in the dough. Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Unleavened Bread not only because He had no sin in Him, but also because when, after His crucifixion (on Passover) and His body was placed in a tomb, it did not see decay (in fulfillment of Psalm 16:10). v. 4 for seven days – God requires the children of Israel to thoroughly cleanse their homes of all traces of leaven seven days before the Feast begins as a reminder that the Passover represents a spotless, sinless sacrifice and God's desire that His people follow suit and allow Him to deal with the sin in their lives (1 Cor. 5:6-8). v. 8 you shall do no work on it – The Feasts of Israel were considered Sabbaths, and just as on the weekly Sabbath they were to do no rest, on the Feast days they were prohibited from doing any typical labor. God desires to see His people set aside all of the mundane tasks associated with daily living and focus only on Him for that time. |
| The Feast of Weeks Reviewed v. 9 count seven weeks for yourself – The Feast of Weeks took place seven weeks after the Feast of First Fruits, a date they put the sickle to their barley and harvested the first fruits of their crop. They counted out seven weeks, or seven sets of sevens, which added up to 49 days, and celebrated the Feast of Weeks on the fiftieth day. Thus the Feast became known in the Greek language as "Pentecost," meaning "fiftieth day." The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was fulfilled on the day that the Holy Spirit was sent to fill His church in Acts 2:1-4. | v. 10 freewill offering – The Feast of Weeks was meant to honor and thank God for the harvest that had fully come. Therefore, besides the sacrificial animals which were to be brought before the Lord (described in Leviticus 23:15-21), they were to bake two loaves of bread, bring them to the Tabernacle or Temple, and waive them there before Him in thanksgiving for the harvest. As Weeks was later fulfilled in the Acts 2 Pentecost, those two loaves represented Jews and Gentiles who were being brought together to God and saved as part of the greatest harvest season the world has ever seen. |
| The Feast of Tabernacles Reviewed v. 13 observe the Feast of Tabernacles – Sometimes called the Feast of Ingathering or the Feast of Booths, Tabernacles was a Fall Feast during our months of September or October. The Feast was meant to commemorate the years during which the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness and experienced miraculous provision from God. As explained in verse 16, along with Unleavened Bread and Weeks, it was a "pilgrim Feast," or one for which all of the males in Israel were required to travel to Jerusalem to observe the holiday. There they built leafy huts made of tree branches to live in for the seven days of the Feast, a reminder of the conditions in which they had lived in the wilderness. More detailed information on the observance of Tabernacles is found in Exodus 23:16 and Leviticus 23:33-43. This Feast is commonly agreed on as one which will be fulfilled in the future when Jesus returns to this earth and dwells ("tabernacles") with us for 1,000 years. v. 17 empty-handed – When traveling to Jerusalem for the three pilgrim feasts, the men were to bring something in their hand with which to celebrate. The Lord desired for these to be joyous occasions, and therefore not a time for meager provisions. | Justice Must Be Administered v. 18 appoint judges and officers in all your gates – Once Israel was firmly established in the Promised Land, every city was to have its own representative government, including local courts. The next few verses establish the necessity of honesty and integrity among those making judgments, and the next chapter will describe a system of appeals to higher courts made available to those unsatisfied with the rulings of the lower local courts. v. 21 any tree as a wooden image – The pagans who had previously inherited Canaan had planted groves of trees which they had considered sacred, and under which they worshipped their gods. They had also set up wooden images, much like "totem poles," to represent and honor their goddess Asherah. However, the religion prescribed by God in His Word knows nothing of this, and therefore the Lord here prohibits the incorporation of pagan worship practices into His own. v. 22 sacred pillar – The Canaanites also built stone pillars that were meant to represent male fertility. The children of Israel were repeatedly forbidden to incorporate such idolatry into their own lives or religions. |
| Chapter 17 v. 2 if there is found among you – Chapter 17 begins with instructions concerning those who would later rebel against the commands of the Lord in Israel. These commands are not intended to apply to every person who commits sin, because everyone in Israel would be a sinner, as we all are. These commands are meant to apply to the person who willfully breaks the covenant of the Lord, as described in the next verse. v. 3 served other gods and worshiped them – This is the description of the particular transgression that called for the severe punishment described in this chapter. The person who deliberately breaks his covenant with God in such a way that he turns away from Him to worship other gods, whether pagan idols or the hosts of Heaven (many of the pagans would worship the sun, moon, and stars), was to be put to death. One reason for this severity was that the individual had broken a covenant, much like marriage, with God. The penalty for adultery in Old Testament Israel was death. Another reason for the severity was that God knows infectiousness and contagiousness of apostasy. If apostasy was undealt with in Israel, it could easily spread throughout the entire nation and lead all of them astray. Thus it could have eternal ramifications for hundreds of thousands of people. | v. 4 you shall inquire diligently – If an Israelite heard that another Hebrew was following after false gods, it was his responsibility to look into the matter rather than just ignoring it. However, the Lord also commands them to make a diligent inquiry, rather than jumping to a conclusion on the basis of hearsay. There was to be a thorough examination of the matter, and God describes in later verses the fact that there were to be witnesses included in the investigation. v. 6 two or three witnesses – The Lord is so mindful of the life of men that He demands two or three eyewitnesses of an event in order to put a person to death for a capital crime. He tells them specifically in this verse that the testimony of one witness is not enough. It would require at least two eyewitnesses who were willing to stand up and verbally accuse the condemned in public. v. 7 the first against him to put him to death – The one who is willing to stand up and publicly accuse the condemned is also required to be the first one to pick up a stone against the accused to put him to death. This would caution the witness against making a false accusation or even a hasty decision about what he saw. It would also subject the accuser to the penalty of blood vengeance if he had wrongfully condemned someone to death (19:15-21). |
| v. 8 too hard for you to judge – The Lord makes provision for cases that are too difficult for the lower, local courts to decide. In that case, verse 9 instructs them to take the case to the priests, who would seek direction from the Lord on what to do with the accused. Thus the process involves a direct word from God. v. 12 who acts presumptuously – The word "presumptuously" means "in arrogance," and refers to the person who chooses not to obey the word given by God through the Priests. The previous few verses state that when the Lord has spoken through His representatives on a matter, great care must be taken to obey His voice and carry out His will. Here, God instructs that the man who does not respect and heed the voice of God should suffer the penalty that was at first to abide with the accused. Principles Governing Kings v. 14 like all the nations that are around me – This is the only passage in the Law that addresses the possibility of a monarchy. Moses steps again into the role of prophet, looking by the Spirit into Israel's future and predicting that the day will come when they will demand that God give them a king so that they are like all the other nations around them. This was fulfilled in the days of Samuel and Saul (1 Sam. 8:5,19,20; 10:19). It was an unfortunate turn of events, for God desired that Israel be a theocracy rather than a monarchy. He Himself wanted to be the only King over Israel and set them apart from other nations in that way. However, the Lord gives them instructions to ensure that they will be somewhat distinct from other nations, in that their king will have strict guidelines around them to guide their spiritual path and moral behavior. v. 15 whom the Lord your God chooses – They were not to hold elections. Instead, they were to seek the voice and will of God concerning the identity of their king. The Lord also instructs them to ensure that a fellow Israelite, not a foreigner, takes the throne. | v. 16 shall not multiply horses for himself – Once Israel began looking up to a king, his tendency would be to desire the accouterments of other monarchies around him. The Lord here advises him not to accumulate horses for himself, for the tendency would be to put his trust in horses and chariots as the strength of Israel. God desired that all of Israel and her king would put their trust in Him alone for security and strength. Egypt was a country abounded in renowned breeds of horses, but the Lord desired that His people never return to that nation that had oppressed them and from which He had just delivered them. v. 17 neither shall he multiply wives for himself – Polygamy was never God's desire for His people. As Genesis 2:24 states, every man is to leave his father and mother and cleave to his one wife, and that the two of them shall become one flesh. This is impossible to do with more than one wife, and so the Lord instructs at the very outset of the Scriptures that marriage is to be between one man and one woman, in a lifelong relationship of love and commitment. However, when Israel enthrones her king, that king will become puffed up and desire to multiply horses, wives, and gold for himself. As in the case with Solomon, that became a road to inevitable disaster. v. 18 shall write for himself a copy of this Law– Israel's king, before taking the throne, was required to hand-write a copy of the entire Law of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). This would ensure that he was familiar with the Word and the desires of God, and would serve as a defense against transgressing the commands of God listed in this chapter. |
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